


Life Was Easier Yesterday

by 0110



Category: Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Accidental Bonding, Drinking Games, Mutual Non-Con, Reality TV, Slow Burn, Transformers Spark Bonds, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-05
Updated: 2017-06-17
Packaged: 2018-05-11 23:31:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 12
Words: 15,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5645812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/0110/pseuds/0110
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which a tired Jazz gets an unexpected call, then an injured Prowl gets an unexpected journey, which leads to the discovery that certain types of spark injuries do not do well with drinking games and that Smokescreen can’t work unsupervised. Which causes a series of unfortunate events that are hard to explain to others.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. not really.

  
Jazz ‘s craft skimmed across the ruin of Praxus, weaving thru crystals that were charred and greying. He had been here many times before the attack and been oblivious to the gleaming beauty of the crystal gardens and towers. Now the jagged edges seemed to tear at his soul with the pure destruction of such beauty.

  
He and Mirage had been returning from a mission when the call came. He’d actually been in recharge when the encrypted receiver had begun blinking. He’d had precious little downtime since Praxus had been attacked. The checking and rechecking of their network to see if it was compromised, looking for a reason that they had no idea that the Neutral city had been in the target sights of the Decepticons had stretched the spec ops commanding team.

  
Everything they had unearthed looked like the attack had not been premediated, it almost looked like a rash decision and the charred remains of the once bustling city state showed it had been overkill. There had been nothing strategic about the destruction with excessive force and uncoordinated weapon discharge with quite a large number of ground Decepticons being lost to friendly fire. So many in fact, that if it had been a battle, the Autobots would have considered it a victory. But it wasn’t a battle and the residents of the city state non-combatants. The loss of such number of Decepticons grounders had seemed no victory, it only added to the horror of the attack.

  
Mirage had roused him immediately, not that he’d had far to go as Jazz had fallen into recharge in the co-pilot seat. But given Jazz’s onlining methods that rousing had consistent of a hard shove and a very quick movement away from the sudden attack. Not that it helped, as Jazz had Mirage pinned to the cockpits door before he’d onlined his optics.

  
Jazz immediately released Mirage and the spy stood tall “One wishes you would do something about that coding” shaking his plating into position “you’ve got a call” indicating with his helm to the blinking receiver.

  
Mirage wasn’t meant to be with him, he’d meant to drop him at the Simfur outpost, but given his warnings on the HUD about emergency stasis. Jazz had decided to “keep him” much to the spy’s pleasure. The simfur outpost he’d been assigned to get a connecting ship to the Praxus emergency centre had been primitive and Mirage had long decided that as much as he believed in the Autobot cause, recharging in what he considered abysmal quarters should be avoided at all costs. It also suited Jazz that he drop the spy at Praxus as it would give him an opportunity to get some down time with some ‘bots that were not special ops.

  
Jazz rubbed his optic to free the lenses that always stuck when he abruptly onlined and indicated with his helm for Mirage to either leave or cloak. He hadn’t actually told the Command centre that he’d kept Mirage or that he’d changed his brief.  
Mirage chose to gracefully exit the cockpit, unspacing his empty cube as he went.

  
Trying to free the lense again, Jazz returned to his seat and opened the channel, it was from Iacon command he noted with some surprise. Generally he received messages through outlying outposts as Iacon communication infrastructure operated under the weight of all the of decepticons security scrutiny.

  
“Red’ll be having a fit” he mumbled to himself, calibrating his vocal processors at the same time. Whatever this was, its rarity spoke of serious and important news. For a moment his processors flickered to other neutral colonies, and then he stilled and flipped the com into receiving position.

  
A visual of Optimus Prime flickered into life, looking as tired as Jazz felt, his plating still showing the scuff marks from the his involvement of the search and rescue operation of Praxus, his office was dim. A check of his chronometer and a quick calculation confirmed that it was the deep of the dark cycle in Iacon.

Jazz took a moment to encrypt the data further, smothering the guilt he felt at agreeing to the plan to take away Elita One at a time when the Prime obviously needed him with a wide grin.

“Op, Hi, nice of ya’ ta call ta chat”

Optimus mumbled response was as coherent as his appearance suggested “Hi, Jazz, er, how are you?”

Alarm bells sounded in Jazz processes and his grin widened, Prime didn’t call in the middle of the Dark Cycle on an encrypted channel to his TIC and head of special Ops who was in a undefendable ghost ship to inquire about his health.

“Ah’m cool, how’s Red head?” that was the pre-agreed line to test if the prime was under duress in a call like this. Primes optics flared and he sat marginally straighter “Quite sparkly, last I looked”

Jazz relaxed, that was the all clear “Sooo Op, how can Ah help ya?”

The Prime uncharactisically fidgeted. “ I need you to go to the Praxus Emergency Centre and bring Prowl here”

“Why? Last time I looked there were transports every five kliks between the PEC and Iacon, an’ Ah’m almost halfways anyways, he can get on one of them, more secure than this rust bucket” he patted the ship with a wry grin; he was fond of this craft.

  
“Yes” the Prime paused “there is transports” another pause “ he won’t get on a ship with mechs he doesn’t trust to come home”

  
“I reckon the Prowler thinks he is home, being Praxian an’ all, can’t ya just order him? He’ll be on transport before ya finish vocalising”

  
“I can order him, and I will, onto your transport” the prime intoned “Prowl is experiencing complications with the destruction of Praxus and unwilling to share space with those he doesn’t trust for an extended period”

  
“Yeah, ya said” Jazz paused “ the Aft is feeling? And he doesn’t want anyone to see that he actually has emotions? That it? Can’t Smokescreen go fer ‘im? He can get a transport there and back”

  
The Prime plates seem to pinch further “No, All Praxians have been touched by this tragedy and are currently under the care of Ratchet” The Prime sighed, “Prowl’s not well, He’s been” again a uncharacteristic pause from the Prime “ affected, Ratchet wants him back so he can watch him medically, if I don’t find a solution to suit Prowl, Ratchet will have him coming back in full in Medical stasis and you can imagine what that will do for Morale and what Prowl will think of that option afterwards.”

Jazz winced at the fall out of putting Prowl into medical stasis and then winced again at the thought of the idea of being onboard the small craft alone with Prowl. Prowl was rarely much fun.

“Ah was gonna do, um, a trade run next to get some bits and bobs”

Optimus frowned “task it to someone else or take Prowl with you……. that’s actually a good idea, take him with, Prowl could use the downtime”

“I dunno if this is a good idea, Op” Jazz began.

The Prime looked at his console “it looks like this call is being compromised, until all are one” and with that, the visual flickered out.

Mirage shimmered into view next to him “did Prime just say to take the stick-aft on a smuggling run with you?” he asked incredulously.

Jazz's head fell forward onto the console.

“Yes, yes he did”


	2. Praxus Emergency Centre

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jazz arrives at the Praxus Emergency Centre and everyone is excited about him leaving.

The base no longer looked like the Praxus Civilian terminal it had been, but more like a military salvage yard that was stamped with Prowl’s ruthless brand of efficient economy. 

 

Moving into the flight pattern, Jazz could see even from a distance the precision of the salvage operation and he wiped a servo over his faceplates, trying to wake his processor and free the lens that was still sticking.  He had been Third in Command for a long time and buffered Prowls management techniques enough to see that the mechs were running on what Prowl called adequate and what Jazz knew was practically perfection. Which meant there was bound to be a lot of frazzled tempers.

 

Getting Prowl to Iacon might stop the entire division stationed at the Praxus Emergency  Centre from a charge of absent without leave, as well as making Ratchet a happy bot.

 

Jazz started to hum, he would need to be showing his bubbly, happy bot face if Prowl was running at what Prowl referred to as “efficient” and the rest of the planet refer to as “slave driver.”

 

The encrypted receiver started blinking and Jazz leant forward and tapped it and Mirage shimmered out of sight. Again, it was from Iacon and Jazz found the hum dying in his vocaliser.

 

Ratchets faceplate appeared, he was leaning into the sender and he practically snarled across the screen.

 

“What the pit are you doing?  Taking you-know-who into primus-knows-where? He’s to come back here.  Now, no not now, immediately!” 

 

 “Whoa, Ratch!” Jazz leant back from the screen. “It was Op’s idea to take him on tha’ next run and since the runs for ya to get that stuff-tha’-won’t-be-named-on-a-comline,  Ah’m more than happy to ditch the run an’ come straight back in.”

 

He looked at his instruments, “Ah’m right in the middle of ma approach to Praxus now, so say tha words and Ah’ll bring him straight to ya.”

 

Ratchet leaned away from the console and the tapping of his servos were the only sound coming across the line “how long will this detour take?”

 

“Ya KNOW Ah don’t give timeframes and ya know why, still on approach ‘ere.”

 

“I’m going to send you an encrypted datapad with what is happening to the surviving Praxian’s and why I evacuated them all aside from the Unicron-spawn himself. He should already be here!” he leant back into the console so his faceplates again took the entire screen” You will read it! You hear me? That Praxian will run himself into the ground and still consider that he is operational.  He is ill, seriously so. You will check his energon levels as his grief will have him running rich. You’ll get instructions on his health, follow them!”

 

“Tha control towers buzzin’ me, Hatch and since ya so nice about it” Jazz leant back and put his pedes on the dash so that Ratchets view would be partially obscured “Sure, Ah’ll give it the once over, no promises, ay” with that he cut the connection.

 

Mirage shimmered back into sight and tilted his helm questioning “You always give me stringent ETA’s on missions, for anything from a refuelling run to the rec room or an infiltration of Darkmount.”

 

“Yea, well ya need ta know, the Hatchet doesn’t.”

 

Blaster’s cheerful voice came over the local area com “that looks like the Jazzmeister’s favourite ‘ship! You gonna call in?”

 

“Ya got this place locked down if ya speakin’ like that, ma mech.”

 

“So tight, I know ya was on the com to Iacon, give me five klicks longer and I mighta had the full feed.”

 

“Ya scarey, ya know that? Where da ya want me?”

 

“You on your own? I’ve got a mech who sighted your ship that is really pretty disappointed that you’re answering.”

 

Mirages faceplate lit up “Well, ya tell that mech that Ah’m a better deal, but Ah got a package for him if he pings me his locator.”

 

“Set her down in quadrant 8b-2, looks like your making some mods and taking some cargo? With a quick turn round?” Blaster was talking for the sound of his own voice.

 

Jazz grinned, “Yeah, smash and grab, might not be able to catch up.”

 

He guided his craft to the loading bay and saw several of his bots lined up ready to make the little ship ping like a D21 heavy hauler. The rest of the Autobots considered Spec Ops to be relaxed, and Primus knows he promotes that myth. In truth, their missions required a level of precision that had to be honed to perfection.

 

He passed on Hounds ping of his locator onto Mirage and the other spy shimmered out while the ramp extended.

 

“Ya’ll be arriving in two cycles on that ship from Simfur, remember!” he shouted to the now empty room.

 

Solaris met him at the base of the loading ramp with several datapads.   “Tell me that the VIP listed on this amended plan from Iacon is the stick-aft.”

 

“Ya get tha’ energon goodie, ma friend” Jazz said as he walked towards the main building, and then frowned “I was expectin’ one from the Hatchet.”

 

Solaris didn’t hide his surprise “You are taking him with you on the medic supply run?”

 

“Yip, the big mech’s idea, how much high grade can ya get me?”

 

“Pretty sure that Sideswipe will give you his current stock if you take him this cycle and you will need it, I’ll go find that datapad for you” Solaris started to look at the tablet in his hand with the slightly distracted look that mech’s  got when they were on internal coms. “When are you planning to leave?”

 

“As soon as the ship ready to lift off, where is the stick-aft? And we’ve had an increase in enlistment of 28%? Why? Wouldn’t have thought Praxus destruction would encourage the neutrals to fight” Jazz subspaced the reports.

 

“Prowl’s in the control tower, think you might find this the quickest turn around you’ve ever had, the whole base will be helping” Solaris smiled.

 

Jazz winced “Tha' bad?”

 

“He’s gone colder than normal and doesn’t seem to be recharging at all.  Which means no one else can either” Solaris paused. “As to enlistment, Yes, the stats show that the neutrals are less likely to enlist since Praxus fell, it seems Smokescreen’s plan of a widespread pulp orientated televised drama of the ongoing conflict has mitigated to an extent the negative effect of the fall of the Praxus on enlistment and it's raising morale within the troops, but I’m very surprised Rung allowed it.”

 

“Well, anything that makes happy bots, makes me happy an’ we need more ‘bots.”

 

Solaris frowned “I’m not entirely sure you’d be happy if you saw it.”

 

Jazz looked at Solaris, he wouldn’t be persisting with this if he was comfortable.  Something was up.

 

 “OK, get me a copy and Ah’ll take it, Primus knows when, but Ah’ll look at it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the Kudo's and Comments, its very inspiring!


	3. On their way...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finally got them in the same place and the same time!

 

Sure enough Prowl was stalking the deathly quiet control tower floor with a datapad in his servo. Jazz looked at him. His plating was gleaming and his wings erect. It was a direct contrast to the scuffed armor of the Primes armor and Jazz own frame. Prowl had taken serious time to clean up, probably to appease Ratchet.

Prowl turned when Jazz entered and icy optics swept his frame. Not to be outdone Jazz swept Prowl frame with a scan and almost faulted on his step. Prowl was running at 38% fuel, almost to the point where survival protocols would be initiated. Jazz wordlessly pulled energon from his subspace and handed to Prowl with a tilt to his helm. Jazz wouldn’t publicly demand he drink it, Prowl was a superior,  but he wouldn't hold back if Prowl didn’t take it. The mech was being an idiot.

Prowl raised an optic ridge and took the energon. “When do we leave” 

Jazz looked at him “not even ‘hello lover, how’s your orn? or "Hi Jazz, thanks for tha' energon ” The silence changed from charged stilted and oppressed to that of an audience waiting for good gossip.

“Hello Jazz” was deadpanned back at him.

“Hello Prowler”

 

“It is Prowl. When do we leave?”

"Whats with ya' finish? ya look like ya a pleasure mech or a noble consort, good thing I got a visor, blinded by the gleam here."

Prowl's optics got colder and he narrowed them."when do we leave, Jazz?"

“Just got a ping from the ‘bay, soon as your right to go.” Solaris was right, it was an incredibly quick turnaround. Prowl had obviously been making friends in his tenure of base commander.

The silence of an audience that was obviously hanging onto the conversation was getting to him.

“Ah’m gonna pick some stuff up from Solaris and head back now”

Prowl nodded, “I will update the logs and meet you”

Jazz felt the entire control room attention as he left and as the door slid closed behind him. He shook out his plating. That silent watching was just weird.

Shaking once again he went in search of Solaris.

He met with Solaris who was with a bouncing Sideswipe. "you are taking him right? I've given you the good stuff so you should go, like, right now"

Jazz fought the urge to ask what Sideswipe what he'd done to Prowl to want him out the way, but the shutdown warnings were starting to come up in HUD again. "go somewhere else Sides, we got business here and the longer ya talk to meh, tha longer Prowl is here." Much to his surprise Sideswiped turned and transformed without another word.

He’d managed to walk and talk with Solaris, who’d given him Ratchets datapad and several vids of "Solar Winds : The Autobots fight for right" Smokescreens project. He’d frowned as he counted the blank covered vids, they must be pretty poor quality to have so many in such a short period of time.

He’d just made it the top of the loading ramp, when silence descended around him , looking up, sure enough Prowl was stalking past the bots on the apron towards Jazz's craft. His wings and chevron stiff and gleaming in the sols weak light. The 'bots in the Loading bay stopped to watch him. He was the last Praxian to leave Praxus. Everyone else already evacuated to Iacon to be clumped together under Ratchets tender mercies.

Prowl strode confidently up the gangway past a smiling Jazz and as soon as he was out of sight of the apron hidden by the nondescript crates his wings started a faint tremble.

"Are we alone?" he asked the hold. Jazz who had followed him in replied "Yip, Doors a closin'“as if to punctuate the sentence the light in the hold was getting dimmer.

 

Prowls wings dropped and the trembling increased to Prowls whole frame as he abruptly leaned on the boxes and then slid down onto the floor.

"Get me away from here" it was almost a whimper from Prowl. Jazz was startled, he didn’t think Prowl even knew how to whimper.

 

"I'll get us up and onto the freighter, Do you think you can get into a berth?" Jazz asked as he began towards the cockpit.

Prowl, nodded and placed his helm into his servos.

Jazz left him to take the nimble craft into the air. The first part of this run was to cling to a freighter which did a routine flight, with the craft broadcasting the same codes as a freighter, so any scans would only see the frieghter. Jazz and Prowl only needed to sit quietly as the craft clung to the freighter, like an external storage, engines dead, some outside calls could even be made through the freighter systems. Even if Soundwave scanned the crew they wouldn't disclose their existence as they really didn't know about the little craft existence. It was a little harder getting out of Helios, but Jazz doubted that it would occur flying in. The next three cycles looked like an opportunity to catch up on recharge.

He set the alarms in case they were hailed or diverted or in any way delayed. Rubbing a servo tiredly across his face, he wiped the flashing warnings of his HUD. He'd just check in on Prowl and then hit the berth himself. Picking up the encrypted datapad from Ratchet he decided that it could wait until he had less warnings flashing on his HUD, after all it wasn't as if he could do anything to help the Praxians. That was Ratchet job. Subspacing it he made his way to the secondary Berth room, to find Prowl not there. A flash of irritation, yeah, the infuriating Praxian was right his rank did entitle him to the largest of the berth rooms but it was his bloody ship! There was such a thing as good manners. He slammed the wall and went to find Prowl, he was going to pay back some of the frustration that Prowl continual rule obedience had caused him. 

Only to find this berth empty as well.

Jazz stared at the empty berth. Surely not? Skipping down the corridors and then using his magnets to slide down rails, lifting his pedes to completely miss the stairs to the hold. Where a crumpled Prowl remained, holding onto the crate as if he had failed trying to rise and then just stayed. 

"Prowl!, ya OK?" he went quickly to his side. Prowl nodded, "I am functional" he said in an almost monotone.

Jazz was stumped. It was obvious that Prowl was so not functional. Ratchets words echo'd in his audios.

"well, ya might be functional, but I reckon ya'll be a lot more functional in a berth"

Prowl optics had dimmed. " I concur" was the same monotone response.

"I’m too tired for this frag, Prowl, can ya get up?" There was no response.

Leaning down Jazz hauled Prowl to his pedes and found he had to practically carry the heavily leaning Praxian up the stairs and into the main berth room. He told himself it was because his berth room was bigger and easier to negotiate while carrying a Praxian that was now clinging to him. That was the only reason he took Prowl there. A little voice jeered in his mind and tried to remind him of his earlier anger, but really the berth was bigger and Prowl did have wings. No guilt at leaving him on the hold floor. None whatsoever. He lowered Prowl as gently as he could onto the berth, in the process bringing their chest together as laid the Praxian back.

He tried to rise and Prowl clung harder, hugging Jazz down on to the berth with him.

"Prowl, buddy let me go" he said as he began to claw the servos of his plating.

Prowl whimpered and the sound went straight to Jazz spark and he stilled “Don't leave me" was the static laced plea from the dim opticed Praxian, "everyone’s left me, they’re all gone."

Jazz spark felt like it physically hurt and multiple warnings flashed in his HUD, without consciously thinking he lowered himself onto the berth next to Prowl. Prowl rolled towards and almost on top of him. So his wings were free and he pressed into Jazz.

"Ok, I'll stay, but ya better recharge quietly as I don't online tha' best if disturbed" Jazz said as his recharge protocols initiated as soon as his helm hit the padding.

 

 


	4. Even the innocent can jump to the wrong conclusion.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jazz should have listened to Mirages request.

Jazz's audio horns felt a change in pressure in the atmosphere of the berth room. It was almost as if he was being gently fanned. Jazz actively fought his onlining protocols.  He was comfortable and, frag it, he couldn't remember the last time he was comfortable in a berth.  The temperature was perfect, the fanning soothing, and the steady pulse of a spark against his side chestplates was relaxing in a way that was hard to quantify.

That bought Jazz’s onlining procedure firing forward. There should be no spark anywhere near his!

His threat assessment identified that he was lying on his back, with a strange helm on his shoulder,  his own servo was resting on his chest clasped on to the intruders servo. His other servo lay gently against the strange mechs back, nestled between what felt like door wings. Jazz fought the urge to lash out to kill; he twisted and pulled, effectively trapping the strange mech under him.  Jazz easily trapped the mechs servos, with his magnets, above the intruder’s helm.  He onlined optics to visually inspect his captive and he simultaneously went to grab for an energon blade.

Onlining pain filled blue optic's met his "Jazz!" Prowl immediately tried pushing against him but the hold Jazz had initiated held him.   "You are hurting my wings!"

Jazz rolled again, intending to bring Prowl on top of his chest so the wings were free, but the berth was not that wide and both bots crashed with groans of pain onto the floor.  Prowl was trapped under Jazz again. The half formed blade in Jazz’s servo nicked Prowls wing. The Praxian grunted and he arched up against Jazz.

"Get.Off. Me” There was pain promised in Prowls voice.

Jazz rolled again, bringing Prowl on top of him as he'd planned originally. Prowl immediately tried to push himself up, but winced and fell heavily back against Jazz.

"My exterior sensor panels are damaged and my  balance is compromised” He glared down at Jazz.  "What are you doing in my berth?"

Jazz stared up at Prowls glare "this is my fraggin' berth!" 

Jazz was trying to online his recent memory files, they were a little corrupted by fatigue warnings but he was pretty certain that Prowl had asked him to stay.  Jazz checked his memories again. Looking at Prowl he could practically see him accessing the same memories.  No doubt Prowls memories were corrupted by fatigue warnings as well.    Jazz knew, by the minute grimace, that Prowl remembered he had invited Jazz to his berth.  

There was a moment of acute embarrassment teeking thru the Praxian’s energy field. Then Prowl’s optics flickered dimly and he fell towards Jazz.  Replicating the same position that they had onlined only astroseconds before.  Prowls helm was again nestled into the crook of Jazz’s neck.

Prowl vented out softly. "Why did you attacked me?

Jazz stilled. It certainly wasn't unpleasant to feel the movement of atmosphere against his plating and the weight of Prowl was not overly uncomfortable. Jazz’s frame fought to reinitiate recharge and he also felt the first flickers of arousal. His frame knew what happened in this position. It didn’t help that Prowl was currently shiny enough to be a pleasure mech. "Ah think your wings were fluttering and it triggered mah self defense sequence."

"Wings fluttered?" Prowl continue to vent into Jazz neck armor "My panels do not flutter in your presence."

 "Ah, Prowler, Ah reckon they were” Jazz paused “ya gunna get off meh?"

"Sensor panels are damaged, balance compromised" was vented softly into Jazz neck "Energon low, initiating medical stasis."   

That got Jazz to stop instigating his own recharge. He tried to do a medical scan from his position under the slightly larger mech.

Prowl was low on energon. Critically low.

Reaching into his subspace Jazz withdrew an energon drip, inserting into the nearest accessible medical port, he magnitised the container to Prowls frame. Then he began the surprisingly tedious task of shimmying out from under Prowl.

It took a lot of wriggling and he left a fair bit of his paint on both the floor and Prowl before he got out. Jazz himself was scuffed with Prowl’s polish and paint.  Not that he couldn't handle the weight of Prowl, but the mech was in stasis and had magnetised himself like a sparkling to Jazz chest.  When Jazz did manage to get out and look at the damaged sensor wings.  He saw that Prowls assessment of "sensor panel damaged" was a wild understatement.  Both wings were a crushed mess.  With the gash from Jazz’s knife seeping energon sluggishly.  Prowl had probably gone offline from the pain. Not energon deficiency as Jazz had first assumed.

There was no way that Jazz could handle an injury like this without help.

He would need to talk to Iacon medical.  Jazz checked his internal chronmeter they were still just in Autobot territory.  Intiating the call sequence he made his way to the cockpit.  The cheerful face of First Aid appeared.  Jazz felt tension, that he hadn't even realised he'd been holding, release.  It wasn't Ratchet!

"Aid, good to see ya,” Jazz vocaliser was static filled from recharge “Prowler’s damaged, standby for files."

"Standing by, received" First Aid optics dimmed as he focused on the transmitted files.  "I would have thought that you and Prowl would be experienced enough to not get this type of interface injury."

Jazz gaped "It’s not an interface injury!"

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short Chapter! Relearning my own language is proving time consuming. :-)


	5. travelling companions

Jazz had never been so grateful for the automatic communications silence sequence that was built into all Spec ops ships when leaving Autobot controlled space.  First Aid had called Ratchet, with a soft  "I told you it was true" that had riled the already irritable older medic.

Jazz had tried to point out several times that he and Prowl HAD NOT been interfacing,   the last attempt had been cut off when Ratchet had thrown a wrench at the screen, cracking it at the medic's end. Ratchet had then cursed Jazz soundly for not reading the datapad that he had sent to him. Ratchet had the pinged directions for several additives to be added to his and Prowls Energon.  Ratchet was just in the process of sending several code amendments, while warming up to an epic cursing tirade,  when  the silence sequence had cut him off.

Jazz kicked back in the seat and reviewed the info that First Aid had pinged. It was all doable, straightforward and easy to follow.  Except for the "I always suspected it was true, Although Ratchet told me it was just gossip, Congratulations - I hope you sparkbond.”

Jazz decided that Aid must have just sent a standard sheet and forgotten about the note because it made no sense to him. Returning to Prowl,  Jazz had  the majority of the injuries repaired quite quickly, The panels had looked worse than they actually were and the only real injury was where the energon blade had nicked a sensor. A small weld and patch, stopped the sluggish seep of energon, it would have to stay in place for the duration for the mission, but should heal nicely.

Prowls energon levels had improved dramatically as well.  Jazz had a short vicious debate with himself, then moved Prowl from the floor to his berth before pinging to bring Prowl out of medical stasis.

"heya Prowler" he said as the praxians optics started to flicker.

Jazz spark gave an uncustomary pulse, as Prowl focused on him, Prowls lips softened under his gaze, Primus, Prowl's finish glimmered in the dim room.

"How ya feelin'?"

Prowl optics narrowed. "You attacked me."

“Yeah, sorry ’bout that, reboot protocols are a bit edgy.” For the first time ever Jazz actually considered changing them and looked at the entire sequence internally, there was an option to look and see if it was Prowl before he attacked the mech waking him.

Jazz had been in the process of changing the sequence, when Prowl’s voice interrupted “I am your superior officer” What the pit was he doing? he didn’t change the sequence for Mirage, who was the most likely to wake him up, he sure as pit wasn’t going to change it for Prowl.

His faceplates burned, what the pit had he been thinking? To even consider a reboot change for the stick-aft of all ‘bots.  

“Yeah, a superior officer who is running low on energon again”

Prowl glared at him, gingerly sitting up and tentatively moved his wings. Wincing slightly at the movement.

“C’mon, up with ya” Jazz grabbed Prowls arms and pulled him upright “Lets get some fuel into ya system."

Prowl nodded and immediately walked into the doorway. “What the frag mech!” Jazz caught Prowl as he started to fall backwards, barely remaining upright as Prowl landed heavily on him.

“Need to calibrate gyros to account for first aid measures on right sensor panel”   

“Yeah, could ya have done that before getting up? I’ve got more of your paint on me than mine at the moment.”

“No, I was unaware I needed to calibrate my gyros before rising”

Jazz helped Prowl upright and he saw Prowl configuration taking place.  “Ya gonna have to hide that sequence, not good to let other ‘bots ya need to recalibrate in the field, leaves you too open”

“It takes an additional 2% of processing power to instigate those measures, I feel it unnecessary to waste energy as I’m never in a field position”

Jazz almost gaped “You’re in a field position now, ya comin’ with me to Kaon, via Helios, for Ratchets stuff”

Prowl stared at him, his optic’s dimmining.

“Didn’t Op tell ya?”

Prowl’s optics flickered with what could have been anger in another bot “ No, he did not” there was a breem silence as Prowl and Jazz stared at each other “Are we able to contact Iacon?” Prowl’s voice was cold.

“Sorry Mech, we are out of Autobot controlled space and we are pretending to be a freighter for the next two orns ‘til we reach Helios”

Prowl nodded crisply.  “What are your plans for the next two orns in radio silence?, I didn’t prepare any work for this time period, I expected to be in Iacon to have access to all my resources.” Prowl paused “ I need to stay busy” he said a little softer.

“My plans?” Jazz barked a laugh “I’ve got Sideswipe's stash of highgrade and I was going ta ‘quality assure’ it and ‘charge.”

“You have several reports that are overdue.”

“An’ they’re gonna stay overdue” They looked at each other again and Jazz’s spark pulsed erratically and he resisted the urge to rub his spark chamber.

Prowl did rub his spark chamber and moved toward the door, this time his steps steady. “Very well, Do you know Revolving Shannix?”

Jazz was gobsmacked “The drinking game?”

Prowl nodded.

“Yeah, ‘course I do, can’t believe you even know it exists”

Prowl turned to Jazz and raised an optic ridge “I was an enforcer, Jazz, I know and am competent in all  drinking games.”

Jazz's grin took over his face “Now that, my mech, sounds like a challenge.”


	6. drinking is not always fun

Jazz lifted his head from the sticky table with the data-pad that had been recording their scores stuck to the side of his helm. 

Prowl had been recording and Jazz had snatched the pad from him and started marking because Prowl was obviously cheating, Jazz didn’t lose drinking games, ever. He pried the datapad from his helm and put it back on the sticky table.

“What about joined at tha’ hip?” His vocaliser slurred the words. Prowl had just won the last drinking game and they had yet to decide on another. 

Prowls wings fluttered “No, I believe the last time you played that you ended up in Ratchets care after you magnetized yourself between Sunstreaker and Sideswipe” Prowl’s words weren’t slurred like his, but the monotone was gone and the classically  famous soft praxian accent was pronounced. Each ‘r’ coming out as a soft purr that seemed to caress Jazz audio’s.

“No fair! It was a slight reverse oscillation problem with mah mags! Thaz all” Jazz stopped.  “Wait. how did you know about that?” 

Prowl leant back, with a slight smugness in his field. “I am the Prime’s SIC, I know all” there was a practically a smirk in his words.

Jazz leant back and placed his pedes on  the table “Is tha’ right” He pushed his fuzzy processor to get a way to get Prowl talking. He loved the praxian accent, pit who didn’t,  practically every rom-com vid had a praxian because the accent was so erotic and sultry it was marketable.

Not any more, he let the grief  that had gripped him since that first pass of Praxus after the attack teek into his field.

Prowl field meshed with his “What are you processing?” Prowl’s own grief had surfaced and  teeked strongly in his field as he leaned across and lazily pushed Jazz pedes off the table.

“Praxus” Jazz replied, not looking at Prowl. “I loved the accent, I've never heard you speak with it before and it just reminded me of good times in the city of crystals, yah know” Jazz trailed off and took a swig from his cube.

“My accent tends to be distracting for mechs” Prowl voice was brittle and Jazz could feel the effort that Prowl was putting into keeping it a monotone. 

“I’ll say. Ya’ sound like a pleasure mech as much as look like one”

Prowl polished of his highgrade and poured himself another one.  “Not anymore, you're wearing most of my polish” the double entendre just slipped out of Prowl mouth and Jazz flung his helm back and laughed. Prowl faceplates heated rapidly.

“Geez, mech wished I got that soundbyte” 

They sat contemplating their highgrade silently. Jazz wanted Prowl to talk, to purr his name and he could record it for posterity. No-one would believe it was the stick-aft.

“Sure we can’t play Joined-at-tha-hip?”

“No” 

Jazz put his pede’s back on the table.

“So why did ya’ stay in Praxus and not go with the others to be with Ratchet?” Jazz asked before he thought thru the whole question.

Prowl’s whole field teeked pain and Jazz’s spark felt like it had been zapped. He coughed into his highgrade.

“Sorry Mech, I didn’t mean ta’....” before Jazz could finish Prowl cut him off “No, it is a fair question” the accent was back in full force.

“I wanted to see if I could save and record some of our culture for the future as we will be extinct frame type soon”  Jazz’s spark was pulsing where he felt he’d been zapped before and he reached up and rubbed it absently.

Prowl mirrored him before reaching  across the table and pushing Jazz pedes off the table. Prowl sat again and pulled from his subspace a shockproof container, opening it to reveal a  small crystal node immersed in growth solution. “This used to cover the entire enforcers building. 2823 mechs worked in the building,  The constructicons hacked at it constantly” Prowl hiccupped slightly “this was all I could find”

Jazz reached over and clasped both of Prowl’s hands around the small node. His spark pulse lessening.“Ya not going ta be an extinct frame type, It wasn’t a complete genocide, like this node you lota are gunna grow an’ rebuild”

‘This node may, as I’ve given it a foundation. As a frame-type, Praxians will fade” He reverently replaced the node into its shockproof container. “ I stayed to collect and collate our culture so that future cybertronians can know that we loved, laughed and existed.”

Jazz spark was beating erratically and he scooted round the table to be closer to Prowl and in response Prowl pressed against his plating.

“How, can ya’ say that, ya’ here, there was almost 5000 survivors an’...” Prowl cut Jazz off again. “There was 5239 survivors, they have been fading and  the attrition rate is increasing, just before we left I checked the numbers, there is less than 400 left.”

Jazz just looked blankly at Prowl and then pulled him closer. It eased the erratic spark pulsing in his chest slightly.   “Wha? How?” Prowl leaned heavily into him before answering.

“I forget that you have been in the field, I thought Ratchet would have told you” Jazz’s still foggy processor reminded him guilty of the encrypted datapad.

“Praxus has always been celebrated for it’s tight, almost insular social structure, mainly other mechs focused on our lack of crime” Prowl montone was completely gone and the sultry accent  almost eclipsed what Prowl was saying.

“An’ the city of love, every rom-com I swear was filmed there” Jazz interjected.

He felt Prowl field teek sad agreement, before being overwhelmed by grief again. Jazz sent sadness-condolences-here for you in  pulses back from his field and tried to envelope Prowl as much as possible in the faint comfort.

“It was a bit of a secret, but it doesn’t matter now, It was because we were all spark linked to the metroformer and through him to each other” Jazz felt his processor race and his arms held Prowl tighter. 

“Ya’ was spark linked with ya city?” He said slowly,  the slur completely gone.

The thoughts were appearing and disappearing from Jazz’s thought cue so rapidly he barely had time to register them.

Prowl turned his head into Jazz spark chamber “Yes, Everyone, some more deeply than others. Enforcers were bonded heavily to the city, so we could know where others needed help”

Jazz’s processors couldn’t formulate an adequate reply “You’re all fading because you’ve got broken bonds” he whispered.

“Yes, that is why Ratchet wants you to go to Kaon, he thinks if you can get the supplement some might survive” Jazz held Prowl tightly and felt Prowls vents against his sparkchamber.

“Primus Prowl” he said, he was trying to send waves of comfort but the shock kept interrupting. What would the Autobots do without Prowl? For all his stick-aft ways he was a logistical genius, but how much of that was him and how much the enforcers or the Praxus metroformer? 

No, his mind supplied him, Prowl was Prowl. The Praxus Emergency Centres’ organisation showed that. It wasn’t a hive mind, Prowl was still here with him.

Instinctively Jazz tried to pull Prowl closer as a wave of desperate loneliness rolled from Prowl and as he hiccupped quietly into Jazz sparkchamber. 

“Megatron knew if he could destroy the city-former then we would all be extinguished” Prowl voice was soft “I calculated that he might do it, to extinguish me, if he knew, but calculated that even his megalomania and sociopathic tendencies was not that large”

Jazz winced, Prowl admission showing the huge guilt that he was experiencing and another reason he hadn’t returned to Iacon and Ratchets care. Unlike Prowl, Jazz felt Megatron would have no difficulties extinguishing a frame-type and would have put it in the “top ten most likely thing to happen list” if had know about the spark links. Megatron's Lieutenants would have been cheering him on. The reason his Ops  couldn’t find any indication that this battle front was coming was probably Ol’ Megs had acted the moment he knew about the spark links.

Jazz reached round Prowl and took the remaining cube of high grade and downed it, he was feeling way too sober for this conversation.

“We all done things in this war we didn’t wanna or couldn’t control” He said nuzzling Prowl's helm.

Prowl vented heavily, “I’ve never been alone before Jazz and I’m scared.” Jazz’s spark pulsed almost painfully against his chamber, As Prowl optics dimmed as the highgrade pulled him into recharge, Jazz felt himself slipping as well and fought it.  His spark was pulsing now in a way that was not normal and warnings began to appear in his HUD as the recharge protocols took over.  


	7. and so it begins

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Smokescreens lack of supervision surfaces.

  
Jazz onlined being fanned softly with the steady spark pulse against his side, a spark protocol overrode his spec ops online sequence and he wondered briefly at it, before his entire HUD flooded with warnings, some from the previous orn, but most were new.

  
“nrrrgh” lighting up his optics, rubbing the one lens that always caught. A processor ache made itself known. He would kill Sideswipe when he saw him next. His unofficial endorsement of their highgrade activities depended on the twins not making highgrade that left this type of residual after effect. Trying to clear some of the errors, Jazz looked down at the mech who was magnetized into his side and gently fanning them both with the wing that was clear.

  
Jazz’s frame was made to process poisons and had systems to filter the contaminants. One of the first things he needed to do was clear the main filter so the ache in his helm would clear. Moving slightly he adjusted his own magnets to the opposite magnetics polar so he could slide away from the recharging Prowl.

  
Standing took a little more work than he thought and errors kept flooding his HUD, It wasn’t the best choice of recharging position on the couch. Jazz shrugged, it wasn’t the first time and it wouldn’t be the last time he’d woken on the couch.  
After cleaning the filter, that was much cleaner than he had anticipated he headed to the dispenser. This was definitely a bummer of a hangover from the night before, Jazz wondered briefly if the containment was deliberately small to bypass his system. Then wiped that process thread. Sideswipe was an idiot, but he was a loyal one, and not even Sunstreaker touched his highgrade production. Prowl would not be able to function or engage that tac-net if Jazz’s own system was anything to go by. The second step was to dial the additives that Ratchet had shouted at him for them both. The medic was not above going thru his patient’s private logs to make sure they had followed his advice. He would need to see Ratchet when he got back, the failure of his system to screen the highgrade while he recharged was unacceptable, as was the slight tension in his spark as he stood at the dispenser.

  
Heading back to Prowl, he snagged both Ratchets report and the vid that Solaris had given him. Jazz loaded the vid before sitting down next to Prowl. The spark tightness lessened considerably.

  
Prowl onlined with his return. “Jazz?”

  
“Right here, Prowler.”

  
“We recharged on the couch?” Prowl rolled so his other wing was free.

“Yeah, got a bit overcharged last night” Jazz could see that Prowl was rerunning the memory files. Jazz’s smirked at the blurry confusion in Prowl faceplates.

“Gotta pain chip if you want one” Jazz offered.

Prowl flicked his wing in a negative “Actually feel better than I have for orns.” Confirming Jazz need to see Ratchet about his frames performance. Maybe Sideswipe’s highgrade wasn’t the issue.

He held the energon towards Prowl “Bit of a secret” Jazz’s said in a bad Praxian accent. Jazz’s smirk broadened into a grin at Prowls growing embarrassment.

“That’s highly confidential, Jazz!”

  
Jazz laughed “You were SO overcharged, I thought you were going to lean forward and tap the side of your nasal ridge, for a bit there.”

Prowl sat up properly,  “Jazz! I was not.”

  
Jazz’s laughed and mimicked Powls exact accent “It was a bit of a secret” Prowl faceplates heated and he took the offered energon.

“No one will know of my native vocalisation”

Jazz laughed “Sure, Mech, how you reckoning on keeping me quiet”

Prowl considered Jazz carefully. “Are you trying to blackmail me, Jazz”

Jazz measured  Prowl over his energon and mimicked Prowl single brow ridge lift “Indeed.”

Jazz smirked a bit as he saw Prowl considering what Jazz wanted. “I reckon I could suffer memory access issues if you spoke that ‘native vocalisation’ around me, when we were alone, like now”

“You want me” Prowl heavily emphasized the ‘me’ “to speak with my Praxian language and inflection so can you get off on it when we are alone.”

  
Jazz grinned, teasing Prowl was fun, even with a processor ache “Nah. C’mon Prowler, It’s just a way of grieving Praxus, the City of Crystals. Lotta good memories there.” As he said it, he realised that he actually meant it, but yeah: he probably would find it attractive as the grief receded.

Prowl regarded him levelly. “I don’t believe you.”

“That I had a good time in Praxus? there was this club, this mech” Jazz tone took a dreamy aspect. “what he could do with his sensor panels was amazing.”

  
Prowl’s eyebrow ridge shot up “I do not need to know, Jazz”

“Ah, but you wanna Prowler, I know it”

Prowl regarded him, likely engaging his tac-net to provide all the variables. “I don’t, I am prepared to speak as requested for this mission duration only”

“Done” responded Jazz “till we set down in Iacon, you act and talk like Praxian.”

“I am a Praxian!”

“Coulda fooled me, ya got the frame and that's about it” Jazz flinched internally and his spark panged, that had come out wrong. “I meant that Praxians are, like soft and ya not” His faceplates heated. Change subject now, his spark demanded.

‘So have you seen Smokes vid series?” Jazz asked

“No, I haven’t, I do know it has increased enlistment to the Autobots significantly” Jazz’s spark leapt at the purr and inflection in Prowls response. Prowl’s wing and slight smile acknowledged the grin that Jazz directed at him.

“I’ve got it ready to go” Jazz cued the system to start and Prowl moved across the short distance to sit next to him for better viewing.

As it loaded, Prowl spoke “Smokescreen’s budget was very limited and the time frame short in the first season. So the quality is unlikely to be exceptional. It was very successful, showing significant viewer engagement in allied, neutral and Decepticon territories. I have received a request from Smokescreen, via Rung, for a second and third season. He claims that it would be cost neutral with the second and third season to paid with incomes received from the first series. Of course, that was prior to Praxus fall”

Jazz took a breem to filter out the pure pleasure of hearing the purring praxian accent next to him and comprehend what Prowl had actually said. In the silence, Prowl half smiled, almost purring in Jazz’s direction “That is why I speak in the fashion, I do”

“Nah, Mech, just tryin’ to figure out how Smoke’s got everyone interested, I mean it based on the conflict that already is so well reported, Yeah?” Jazz lied easily.

The vidscreen filled and a slight summary of the conflict began.

“Concise, if basic” Prowl commented.

The musical credits began and a recording of Optimus denouncing the Senate began. “I cleared Smokescreen for use of all Primes speeches” Prowl frowned slightly, “although I am surprised he used that one” and sipped at the energon.

Large glyphs filled the screen as the viewer was told how Optimus gathered a team to assist him in his fight. A corridor similar to the Arks command floor was shown and Prowl’s designation and rank was shown and a Praxian who was obviously a pleasure mech sashayed down the hallway holding a datapad. the screen was frozen and glyphs that gave a brief summary of the Prowl’s life appeared alongside the mech. Jazz started laughing as Prowl lunged forward to pause, spilling his energon, so he could read the summary carefully.

Jazz couldn’t read the summary as he was laughing so hard at the Praxian who had been chosen to represent Prowl.

“I am not a Tower build! I’m not even sure Praxus has any Tower houses! I am not a lord! I am a Simifur preprogrammed enforcer! You can’t just join the Praxus Enforcers! You need to be built to specification! This is ” Prowl waved his hand. “outrageous.” He turned to Jazz and glared at him “You can stop laughing. did you authorise this?”

Jazz swung his head in negative, unable to stop laughing. Finally managing “Nah, Prowler, my Mech, but it’s hilarious. I’m gonna buy a highgrade for the mech that did”

Prowl swung round to consider the Praxian who had frozen in a glamourous, very unProwl like manner, on screen. “I am positive that I picked that Mech up for solicitation, look at the cant of his panels! It borderline scandalous!”

“Ay, where’s my purr gone? that’s way more scandalous!” Prowl shot a glare at Jazz “I keep my word” Prowl replied with his accent. “deleting subroutine to suppress accent now, since you think it's more important than this” Prowl waved at the screen.

“I am shutting the project down as soon as we are in Autobot territories.”

Jazz looked back at vidscreen. Yes, the wings and posture were provocative for a Praxian, but for a musician they were pretty standard. “Think you’re overreacting with this, Prowler. This series” he waved at the screen “has increased enlistment! I reckon we should watch the rest before we make any value judgements or shut anything down, you're the one who's always saying we should intelligence gather first. Think of the cause! think of the new ‘bots! surely a little embarrassment and a few white lies is worth it?”

  
Prowl glared at him but cued the vid to restart and settled back.

On the screen, a small, very shiny polyhex derivative mech danced sensually up to the Praxian and draped itself between the wings. The Praxian wings waved enthusiastically around the mech as they smiled at each other with a smile that promised much interfacing. As the shiny silver mech reached for a kiss with the Praxian. The screen froze again and Jazz’s glyph and rank appeared, with a similar detailed history next to his name.

Jazz and Prowl leaned away from each other simultaneously, as Jazz was the one to lunge forward to pause “I’m gonna kill Smokescreen and whoever authorised, this painfully, very painfully.” he snarled.


	8. Chapter 8

“Jazz, I may need to send you on a remedial report writing course, none of your mission reports have ever indicated the high level of interfacing you undertake during missions”

  
They had made it to episode four, Where Jazz’s character was infiltrating Darkmount via ventilation shafts that positively shone enhancing his avatars armour, while the glossy mech interfaced with every Decepticon he met and then subsequently destroyed the decepticons in all types of gory manners.

  
Jazz looked at Prowl, there was currently two of Prowl, that both moved unsteadily in Jazz’s vision.

  
When they had resumed watching, because really killing a subordinate for defamation needed proper investigation of alleged defamation. Onscreen Jazz hadn’t kissed Onscreen Prowl in the introduction. Onscreen Jazz had been playfully pushed away, with a softly murmured Praxian accented “We are Officers, Jazz, try and act like it.”

  
The fact that Prowl had said those actual words to Jazz on numerous occasions, did not escape the notice of either mech watching.

  
In fact “Jazzy” as dubbed by hotter-than-smelter Prowl (dubbed by the real Jazz, mainly to annoy the real Prowl), tried to kiss the mythical SIC often. So often in fact that Jazz had proposed that they take a shot of highgrade for everytime they ‘almost’ kissed halfway thru the first episode.

  
Which was why there was two of Prowl floating in his vision next to him.

  
“Well, mech, if you can’t get it at home….” Jazzy successfully seduced another generic coloured mech, with the much screeching moaning in overload.

  
Jazz and Prowl both winced.

  
“He’ll have ta go, that voice is a shocker” Jazzy onscreen did just that. “There ya go."

  
“Very efficient” Prowl replied.

  
The series was incredibly bad, full of kitsch and unbelievable plot lines, over sentimental speeches, two dimensional characters and very little actual war. Yes, the war was mentioned but only in a background sort of way. Jazzy was sent to Darkmount to gather intelligence, yes, but he spent all his time interfacing and having miraculous escapes. Hotter-than-smelter Prowl was temperamental and threw his desk a lot. Ironhide was a walking cannon and Ratchet…...Well, Ratchet and Sunstreaker obviously didn’t know about the series, the previous episode had an accidental mate sparkbond being formed between the medic and the twins. Jazz and Prowl didn’t have to kill Smokescreen. Ratchet or Sunstreaker would do it first when they were made aware of it. Sideswipe probably gave the idea to Smokescreen.

  
The background of the episode was the battle of Tarn, which as Prowl commented was dramatic on its own and didn’t need a sparkling tale of true mates to make it interesting. As, of course, the episode had concluded with the knowledge that the sparkbond between the three mechs had always been fated.

  
“We are observing Smokescreens interfacing hopes brought to the screen” Prowl has said as the three mechs had writhed together onscreen in sparkbonded bliss.

  
Jazz had nodded sagely.

  
“Real existence doesn’t occur that way.the chances of a sparkbond of that nature are statistically infinitesimally small! There are no true mates”

  
Jazz nodded sagely again, the room had started to move slightly on its own,

  
They had gone on to watch this episode, because as pure entertainment and an impromptu drinking game “Solar Winds : The Autobots fight for right” was that bad it was good. Jazz had come to like his onscreen counterpart and wished he had some more of his mythical upgrades.

  
Jazzy had returned to base and was seated attractively on Hotter-than-smelters desk and was giving a report on his findings, Jazzy leaned and went to kiss the rapt onscreen Prowl, who predictably pushed Jazzy away with a very convincing come hither look.

  
“Almost” Jazz and Prowl said together and emptied their cubes of highgrade. Jazz reached for the highgrade to fill up for the next “almost.”

  
“Primus, why can’t you kiss him Jazz? I don’t know if my tanks can handle much more highgrade, my tac-nets shut down already, logic trees are failing and vision is getting blurry.”

  
Jazz looked at Prowl, “If that was me, you would be kissed.” He stated flatly.

  
“I don’t think so, Jazz. There is no way you could kiss me” Prowl replied.

  
“Izzat right?” Jazz turned and looked Prowl up and down “ I’m the head of Prime Special Operation Unit, If I wanted to kiss you, you’d be kissed and no peck either AND” Jazz had all the certainty that high grade gave him “you would enjoy it”.

  
“Yes, I saw from your darkmount excursions” Prowl waved his highgrade at the screen. “I am…., was a Praxus enforcer and there is no way I would let you."

  
“No offence, Prowler, Spec Ops, ‘memeber.” 

Prowl narrowed his optics “Are you implying the Praxus enforcers were in someway incompetent?”

  
“Nah, Prowler. I’ma sayin’ that if I wanna kiss you, I would” Jazz sing songed.

"You could not."

  
“I could."

  
“Almost” they said together, as Jazzy and hotter-than-smelter again failed to kiss, Gulping his highgrade, Jazz dropped his cube and pulled Prowl over him and against the edge of the couch. So his wings were free, pulling both of Prowl arms above the red chevron, rolled over him effectively pinning him on the couch, Initiating his magnets, he froze Prowl into place.

  
“I can.”

  
“I am over energised.” Jazz could see Prowl trying to bring his tac-net back online so he could find a way to override Jazz’s magnets.

  
“So ‘m I” Jazz replied and licked up Prowls neck cable. He had several of the upgrades that Pleasure mechs usually had. They were amazingly useful in his line of work and he released a small charge into Prowls main neck cord and he was rewarded with a low moan from Prowl.

  
“I have a spark injury” Prowl said as he tried to angle away from Jazz with his limited mobility. Jazz just took the opportunity to place small charges into the wiring on the exposed collar struts. Jazz laughed “Izzat so?”

  
Prowl tried to swat with Jazz with a barely moving door panel, Jazz reached up and ran his glossa down the edge of the door panel. He had berthed Praxain’s before and knew many of the hotspots. Prowl's wing trembled as he made his slow progress.

  
“Ratchet said I must not interface!” Prowl gasped. His core temperature rising rapidly.

  
“Oh C’mon! that as an excuse is just lame, Prowler” Jazz vented on the wing causing another gasp.

  
Jazz brought Prowl round on top of him, releasing the magnets, and Prowl sprawled across the top of him, free to leave, sparkchamber to spark-chamber.

  
“Mah point is, Prowler, If I wanted to kiss ya, I would” he grinned up at the heated Prowl above him, Prowl vented heavily.

“I’ma guessing this counts as an “Almost” Jazz said as he went to sit up and get his highgrade. Only to be met by Prowl claiming a kiss, that heated his own systems rapidly. Jazz leant up to respond, only to find power draining rapidly from his systems and several unknown programs initiating. He pulled away, Prowl's optics were dimming quickly as well. “what the frag?” He got out before going offline completely.


	9. well, that wasn't on the brochure

 

:: _bond talk_ ::

“Normal talk”

**Comm talk**

 

Jazz onlined with a start,Sitting up quickly and he swept the room.  Prowl laid slightly away on the couch, the vid had stopped on the end screen and there was a slight ozone smell in the cabin.

 

He felt amazing, in direct contrast to the previous orns, the colour of the ships reasonably drab communal area seemed to be bright and light and he fought the urge to rev out some decent heavy tunes. He glanced at Prowl, he wouldn’t put it past him to put a noise ordinance on him.   Springing up, he felt an overwhelming need to move and the ship felt confining and small. He checked his chronometer, he needed to drive and that drive was after they had separated from the freighter, a short trip and then he would be screaming across the landscape.

 

Doing a cartwheel that ended with him magnetised on the ceiling, hanging upside down to get the energon ration for Prowl and himself, he allowed his speakers to quietly pump a jaunty melody,  he hadn’t felt this way since before the war and attempted to consume his energon hanging  upside down. because he could.  After several failed attempts, that had him grinning at himself, he righted himself and bounced his way back to the Praxian.   

 

Flopping himself down, he intentionally jostled the recharging mech. He felt fizzy in a way he hadn’t since his juvenile period.   He wanted company, preferably a party, Prowl was the only mech here so the least he could do is be online when Jazz wanted to party. lifting his tunes a little louder. He put his and Prowl energon on the small table, trying to avoid the conspicuous sticky spots from their investigation of Smokescreen’s  imagination with the full intention of tweaking door wings until the Praxian onlined.

 

A new panel in HUD opened that made him pause, he expanded it to see an onlining sequence that included three separate process systems and numerous code tweaks, process and speed  modifications, it was a rapid sequence that was large, massive in fact. With horror, he realised that he was seeing _Prowls onlining_.  Rapidly he audited his firewalls, they were intact. Returning in an astro-second, he traced  the code to a massive partition in his base drive that was spark enabled. He examined it, all of Prowl files were available to him, all looked like they were meticulously maintained and the files gave an appearance of pristine order. Jazz gaped mentally, trying to rationalise why Prowls files were on his system, never mind the how. A warning pinged that Prowls energon levels were low.

 

An overwhelming feeling of shock horror that wasn’t Jazz picked up him and and swept him away, he fought to stop the feelings tumbling his consciousness.

 

“Jazz, What have you done!” Prowl’s voice was low and controlled in direct contrast to the feeling of horror that he could feel boiling through his systems that _he just knew_ was from Prowl. Jazz  bought his optics fully back online and he found he was staring at Prowl, whose wings had raised in an aggressive display. The colours which were bright before, seem to make the Praxian in front of him shimmer silver and his chevron fire red.

 

“What Ah’ve done? What the frag have you done? Ya on my systems”  Jazz started to fight his own paranoia, as his system ramped up in an attempted isolate and contain Prowl’s intrusion. The pure depth of Prowl’s processes intertwining into his system was staggering and fear bloomed. Jazz was no slouch at virus detection and process intrusion and he could recognise the level that his systems had been compromised without his knowledge.  He began shutting down ancillary systems to fight and contain Prowls intrusion, when the additional speed didn’t help the containment, so he began shutting down critical processes.

 

_::Jazz, Stop! You will put us both into stasis:_ :  Prowl’s voice echoed in his mind. _::Jazz stop! You will put us both into stasis_ : Jazz stilled internally.  Prowl’s voice was like a sparkfilled thought. In the stillness, His HUD flashed his frames critical overheating warnings.  He started to regulate his temperature and bring his baseline systems back to full power.  In the background the litany from Prowl continued.  He examined the systems he had identified as Prowls, warnings of overheating were present as well, but Prowls temperature spike and energy deficiency were from holding his systems unnaturally still against Jazz very concerted attack.  A sense of relief rolled through Jazz and the mantra that had been coming from his spark stopped.

 

Jazz onlined his optics and audios, he was lying on his back and his helm was giving several warnings that he had slightly damaged an audio when he had hit the floor.  Prowl was next to him, it was disconcerting to see Prowls systems giving warnings and information on the position the praxian had placed himself in.

 

“Minimise that information if it is disconcerting” Prowl said.

 

Fear that Prowl could hear his every thought coursed through him, that remark was too much close to his own thoughts.

 

“Jazz, Stop! You will put us into stasis!”

 

“I could hear you saying that” Jazz placed a hand across his chest “here.”

 

“I was hoping you could, I’ve only read about bond talk - you were fighting pretty hard” _::and like the idiot you are, you were trying to kill yourself. ::_

 

Jazz bridled, “What do you mean ‘trying to kill myself? Ya the one on ma systems”

 

“Your systems are available to me also” Jazz felt an incredible sense of vulnerability and began to attempt to isolate Prowl again.

 

“Jazz, Stop.  by trying to isolate my systems you are corrupting your own and taking your hardware and frame beyond it operating parameters with the additional energy of the merge you will damage us both. ”

 

Jazz consciously stopped “WHAT THE FRAG?” He squeaked. “Merge? Bond talk?”

 

Prowl settled back, lifting his hand away from Jazz arm and he distinctly felt Prowls presence leave him, although he could still see the systems report that showed Prowl was stabilising his entire frames operation from their enforced stillness and the unnatural position he had held over Jazz.

 

“I know, as I read the report that Ratchet gave you, It was a condition of my agreement to agreeing to this transport just back to Iacon” Jazz could feel the anger that Prowl felt at being tricked away from what he consider his duties. “That you are aware of what has occurred and the risks of being in a injured praxian’s company represent at this time.”

 

Jazz felt guilt and his optics flickered to the un-accessed, unread  datapad.

 

Prowl stiffened “I take by the contrition I feel from you, that you did not heed his advice...or you didn’t read it at all” _::Of course, you didn’t read it,  you are an incompetent officer:_ :

 

“Ah’m  not incompetent!” Jazz snarled _::if ya didn’t have a stick up ya aft, we woulda have known Praxus was spark bonded to the metroformer and an obvious target ,  ma guys wouldn’t have been pulling triple shifts and Ah woulda had time to read the primus-damned thing::_

 

Utter, inconsolable grief and loneliness swamped Jazz  pulling all conscious thoughts away and when he came back to his senses. He had risen from the floor, the Praxian was being held firmly against his plating and Jazz was rocking him slightly, crooning “A’hm sorry” to a still Prowl that radiated into Jazz spark the the drowned  grief and loneliness that had taken Jazz under, Prowl had magnetised himself to Jazz as he had before.  

 

The brief thought that this was what Prowl had been experiencing every time he magnetised himself to Jazz in the previous orns had his spark panging in sympathy.

 

Jazz wasn’t the head of a Spec Ops for nothing, his ability to adapt to rapidly changing circumstances was the key to his division's success. He pulled up Prowl systems in HUD and examined them. Using some underhanded coding he forcibly stopping the processes in Prowls Tac net that was continually attempting to find ways that could have stopped the crystal cities massacre, he watched as the grief tried a few times to re-initiate the process - watching Prowls system as it moved from a grief stricken catatonic state to recharge. Checking Prowls logs,it became apparent that Prowl hadn’t recharged fully since the orn that Praxus had fallen.

 

Placing an alarm in Prowls system to wake prior to their arrival, he pushed the Tactician systems into full recharge, overriding several flashing alarms.  He had a breem to think how strong the stick-aft was to continuing functioning before his own system started initiating recharge, hurriedly trying to find why his systems were overriding him into recharge, his last thought was the realisation that his ruthless code tweaks in  Prowl systems affected him in the same way they affected Prowl.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You knew that was coming right? complications from a spark injury.....tricky things those spark injury, not the type of things to get heated and inebriated around. Thinking of doing a oneshot on Ratchet compiling the information for Jazz.


	10. while you were out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _::bond talk::_  
>  “Normal talk”  
> Comm talk

Prowl booted up very slowly, he felt lethargic and comfortable in a way that reminded him of several of Ratchet's sedative enforced vacations.  The feeling was not the same, in that he felt clear and the boot showed none of the delayed defrag code errors that sedatives normally caused.

He watched idly the boot sequence and only when he reached the hardware bond intialisation sequences did he remember Praxus and the orns that followed.  His spark panged at the searching code and he tweaked it to cancelled, he wondered how many times he would have to do that before his systems accepted the bonds unreachable status. The next sequence began looking for the Praxus Enforcers bond and again, he cancelled the searching. The next bond sequence, labelled "Jazz" intialised rapidly with an active tag.

Prowl frowned in his processor as he opened the bonds contents. It contained more sequences and code than his other two broken bonds combined. He was not an overly social mech and the bond code looked intrusive into his privacy on many levels.  There was evidence that someone had been picking, most likely Jazz, at the edges of some of the most invasive code and some temporary firewalls were in place, which Prowl could see needed a great deal of reinforcing and it looked like the bond code itself was dismantling the temporary code.

While he investigated the hardware bond components, his boot sequence continued, when it reached his sensor panels it started flagging anomalies, leaving the bond code he looked at the flags.  His frame had been modified while he recharged and many of the components already integrated with his systems.  His sensor panels where muffled and unable to read the surroundings.

Increasing the speed he powered on for the last part his optics onlined. It was immediately obvious why his sensor panels where not able to give a concise detail of his surrounding as he swaddled in a rubberised blanket.  He struggled briefly, taking in the autobot orange walls and then released with a vent,  if he slid to the side the rubber released him. Freeing his helm with a shake,  he heard voices , one of them Jazz's. His recently onlined battle computer gave him a 98% chance that the  rubberised containment was to deprive sensory input. He set it to work on the flagged abnormalcy on his frame and give the best way of escaping the rubber.

 _::ya up?::_ Jazz voice intruded his sequencing.

 _::I am attempting to navigate this containment::_ He could not minimise his annoyance on the bond speak and his irritation rode his words.

 _::containment? ya mean the blanket?::_     Like his, Jazz's word carried many more emotional tags than when he spoke normally.   _::We played with ya frame a bit to make it mission purposed and Ah thought that ya systems might run cool while they integrated:_ :

 _::You mean you modified me while I recharged::_ Horror tinged his words _:: How many  was "we"::_

Prowl felt violated, he hated touch at the best of time as his systems analysed every mirospec of any  physical interactions which usually ended in a processor ache.  The thought he had been modified without his knowledge almost bought his battle protocols to life.

 _::Geez, seriously ya gotta lay up on the paranoia there Prowl, It was just me and a tech, autobot vetted::_ there was a slight pause _::Ya looked way too much like a cop:_ :

 _::I am an Enforcer.:_ :

Prowl had finally escaped the blanket and set his wing sensors on 100%, the reflection of the surrounding walls gave him an accurate picture of his frame.   It had been modified to look like hotter-than-smelter Prowl from Smokescreen's series.  While the scan didn't give colours of nanites, His doorwings had been modified to look they were an addition to his frame as opposed to actually belonging. He looked like a  stereotypical polyhexian, who with clever modification looked like a Praxian.  Part of him begrudging accepted the skill required to make the image even halfway believable.

"Look at that, Punch.  Rechargin' mech facin' the day"  Jazz's peppy voice cut across his sensor net.

Jazz, Jazz annoyed him on the best of days.  Everything slid of the mech platting.  Mission gone wrong, "No probs" for Jazz.  Agents killed, "Hey, they did it in style!" Planning meetings, "what for?, Stop ya fussin',  we're just gonna improv it, Prowler" and a cocky grin. And Jazz reporting method?. That was a source of frustration every single orn.

_::When ya finish listing how much ya love me, I'll introduce ya.::_

Prowl's neural net jarred, _::I do not love you Jazz, In fact, you irritate me immensely.::_

_::Sure ya love me, Prowler.::_

Prowl took the time to see Jazz had been modified as well, no where near as extensively as his own frame, but he did a good impression of the Autobots fight for right's Jazz.  Jazz managed to look more Polyhexian than normal and Prowl stared at him trying to quantify how he could look larger than life while being his own frametype.

Punch had leant over and grabbed the blanket.  "Do you think he was damaged during modification? he should have responded by now and his face seems strangely emotionless."  Punch went to lean forward further and put the blanket around Prowl again.

Prowl grabbed his servo, "I do not require the blanket" his wings took that moment to tell him that he was, in fact, cold.  His vocal program to take the accent out of his speech pattern had been shutdown and he immediately  reinstated the monotone filter code, based solely on Punch impression.

Jazz's laugh filled the room.  "Look's like Prowler got out the wrong side of the berth this morning, don't worry about it Punch, Prowler's got a poker face"

Prowl optics flickered to Jazz.  "It is Prowl, Jazzy" Prowl emphasised the last syllable. Which came out in his natural praxian purr as Jazz switched the filter code off in the middle of Prowl's sentence.

 _::Don't touch my code, Jazz::_ Prowl snarled across the bond.

"Primus" Punch breathed "you are just as gorgeous as Prowl on the data-net, you two are going to win the competition hands down" Punch faceplates took on a dreamy expression " I think I love you! Do you believe in love at first sight?"

Jazz scowled " Hey, Prowler loves me not you."

"I assure you, I do not love you Jazz."

"Yeah ya do. Ya love me just as much as Ah love ya."

Punch was staring at Prowl with a smitten expression on his face. "You've got the bickering down perfect, Just like the data-net."  

"yeah, 'parently we been practicin' for a bit, right Prowler" Jazz nudged Prowl.

"Do not touch me, Jazz" Prowl patience was running low and internally he was trying to turn the vocaliser filter back on,  as Jazz kept coding in front of him to turn it off.

"well, I reckon that you are both going to win the competition anyway" Punch seemed oblivious to the staring contest that the two were engaging in.

"What competition?" Prowl asked stopping his internal tussle with Jazz to turn his attention externally to Punch.  His doorwings fluttered and alerts took the opportunity to start pinging his HUD as his frame began to tell him they were really cold.  Jazz took the blanket from Punch and placed it around his shoulders.

Punch's arms being free, he then threw his arms up "You know the lookalike Solar winds contest that being held at Darkmount? Meisters got you  entered into the Jazz and Prowl category, Thats why you are calling him Jazz, right?"

Prowl turned to Jazz shocked into silence _::We are going to Darkmount, the seat of Decepticon power, Where Shockwave, Soundwave and Megatron control the ground and Starscream rules the sky. As Jazz and Prowl? As ourselves? are you Mad?::_

Jazz grinned at him.  "It's  great isn't it? So awesome an opportunity, we gotta do it, Its goin' to be so cool, we are goin' to win that trophy hands down, cos we got the Style just right!, Gonna put that trophy in ma office" Jazz  paused "Unless we lose that would be bad, very bad, not ta mention embarrassin'."

Prowl's childhood glitch, of locking up at the illogical, started to stop his process.  Normally he fought it, but this time he just let the lockdown take him into blissful blackness.


	11. coming back on line

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> waking up to a disaster of someone else's making is never easy.

::Bond talk::  
“Normal talk”  
Comm talk

 

Prowl came online several Joors after his crash, the boot even more seamless than his previous boots, the bond having settled further while in stasis.

Prowl powered up his optics, Jazz was sitting in a position that Prowl couldn't even comprehend with his frame type. One pede sitting on a Leg strut.  Prowl could feel Jazz overseeing his boot process, like an overprotective carrier.

He met Jazz optics, ::Get out of my helm::

Jazz stared back at Prowl, :: ya in the habit of flake'n out like that?::

Jazz offered several subtexts from Ops protocol on physical liability for ops.

::No:: Prowl's engine growled in counterpoint :: I haven't crashed like that since I was first cold constructed and only in my youngling vorns::

::So what, it just 'appened then:: carefully crafted blankness perpetuated Jazz's frame.

:: My logic trees had a critical error::  Prowl showed him where the error started and ended.

::Ya could have corrected it?:: was carefully offered as Jazz looked over the code.

::Yes.:: Prowl looked at him blankly.

::Why didn't ya?::

Prowl just looked at him, firewalling as much as possible on the fly. He knew the thought might flicker through the bond and even now the feeling was slipping on the underside of his thoughts. Whatever Prowls personal thoughts, It was undeniably rude that he'd rather crash than spend time in Jazz company.

Jazz ex-vented ::look, ya gotta tell me, it's like, well, we are bonded now:: the subtext in his field was one of hardcore pragmatism, "Ya almost took me out with ya"

Prowl did look away at that tasking his tac systems to analysing the bond again,  it had deepened in his time in stasis, they were almost at full bond.  Jazz was right, if he didn't take measures the next time he crashed it would take Jazz as well as him.  

His tanks would have churned if there was anything in them.

::You didn't minimise the bond, and you initiated a full bond?  why did you deepen the bond?::  Prowl tampered down his feelings as best he could, but he wanted to surge out of the berth and rip the spark from Jazz's chassis. He could feel his temperatures starting to rise and opened all of his vents.

::I initiated a full bond:: he could feel the affront from Jazz :: How da ya reckon I did that?::

Prowl held his temper, he lit the appropriate files in his sub system, pulling the highlighted changes to the front.

::Ah yeah, well, ah I was trying to minimise the grief, to like ya more like more stable like:: there was no contrition in Jazz field.

::You tried Mnemosurgery on me? you force a bond on me and then you do Mnemosurgery, you hacked me!::  Prowl entire field filled with horror, internally he began a full defrag, highlighting every change since they left Praxus, including all in stasis changes.

Jazz threw up his hands, ::Frag ya got me, usually, bots don't notice,  I was tryin' to make ya nicer!::

Prowl almost faltered on Jazz words  He drew himself up and away from Jazz clenching his hands at his sides so he didn't pick something and throw it  :: You were trying to make me nicer?  How would you feel if I hacked you and tried to make you smarter::

Jazz bristled, a lip curling up from his denta.  ::I'm plenty smart, bot::

Prowl gritted his denta ::Indeed and I am appropriately pleasant::

::Nah, mech, you are seriously not:: Jazz's engine growled

::The same could be said of your intelligence::  Prowl let his disdain flow freely over the bond.  He felt the anger surge up in Jazz, but physically he didn't even move except to grin, internally all of his threat assessment were activated and his system were going to a battle state without even the slightest tweak of a cable showing on the outside.

Prowl was tempted rifle through Jazz's code and find out how he had achieved that level of precision over his systems.  This mech had already attempted to do Mnemosurgery on him, and he would have been justified in turning the tables on him,  but Prowl had been bonded before, only peripherally, true, but if it was one thing he'd learnt that arguments with a bonded were that two wrongs never made a right.  So he restrained himself from flooding Jazz systems and fell back on enforcer procedures for dealing with bond disputes, Distract and verbalise was the first step.

"How did you do that?"  He asked out loud.

Jazz reset his optics, it was the first thing that had been verbalised since Prowl had come online.

"How did I do what?" He followed Prowl's example of speaking out loud, although Prowl could still feel the anger at Prowls jab at his intelligence.

"How did you bring yourself into a battle state without giving any indication on the exterior?" Jazz stilled over the bond and Prowl could feel him trying to put firewalls up. "It's a bit late for that, you've been digging us in further in your attempts to make me nicer" despite his efforts and Prowl was trying he really was, anger flowed across the bond.

"How did I "dig"? Jazz said.

Prowl stilled, his defrag was still in process consuming much of his attention.  "what do you mean "how did I dig?"" he resorted to replaying Jazz recording back at him, as he did with his cohort when he was younger "What do you know about bonding?" wasn't there information in Ratchets packet? I am positive that I saw a heading with bonding"

"Yeah, well" Jazz anger dissipated into guilt even though his em field remained pleasant and his frame language open.

"You read it didn't you?" Prowl challenged.

"Yeah, I did" Jazz fidgeted in his seat "um, Ratchet wrote that if I was reading that chapter I hadn't read the rest of it before we bonded and he was VERY detailed on how he was going to reformat me and take my mods out this time for real, whole thing was a bit dry on actually, you know how bonds, like work"

"I repeat, Jazz, what do you know about bonding?"

"look, Polys aren't big on tha' bonding thing, ya know, trusts not our major export an' all and tha' crime lords tended to use bonds to extort"  Jazz look crestfallen, " I actually don't know anyone whose bonded, didn' expect ta be bonded, I know that ya have ta put up with the emotions and personality of tha' bot ya get stuck with forever"

Prowl continued to look at him  " So your answer to getting stuck with me was not how to minimise the damage, but to hack me, to make me more compatible, to make me nicer" Prowl hissed the last part.

"I dunno, how to minimise the damage" Jazz replied." I don't wanna bond, I definitely didn't want to get saddled with your pain in the aft, party killer, music hater as my bonded"

Prowl again tightened his fist in an attempt to keep control.

"Luckily for you then, I do know how to minimise a bond and will attempt to do so, I don't know if I can, As you have been quite busy and appear to be keeping me in stasis while you have done so"

He stood up and walked towards the berth room, he paused in the doorway. "Com me, when we dock, do not bond talk to me EVER AGAIN,  Oh and Jazz I will be bringing charges for Mnemosurgerywhen we return to Iacon, it's both illegal and immoral, not to mention your attempts that I have discovered already are totally dismal"

He closed the door to hear something smash against it.   "And ya wonder why I tried ta make ya nicer" jazz impressive sound system made it through the door's insulation.  Prowl powered his optics, diminishing the bond as much as possible, the remainder he channelled his grief across it.  He might as well use Jazz to help process his grief, his bonded deserved all the punishments he could think of.

He then went to the berth and collapsed his bonded deserved pain. Prowl had always hoped to bond fully but this was as far from his imagined first day as bonded as he could get.


	12. trying to minimise the damage

Jazz threw another empty cube at the door and fumed internally at the smug face that had closed the berth door in his face.

Partly he had thrown things to release his codes need for movement, getting locked up in a shuttle like this wasn't that good for his systems, no matter how necessary it was for making these covert hops. There had been times in the past when these type of extended mission had completely wrecked his systems, leaving him with the need to party for orns to get to a state when he could recharge.

He was just about to throw another cube, a full one this time and he paused as his threat assessment told him that it could ignite and cause a mission abort when the first wave of grief hit him.  He dropped the cube that luckily bounced remaining intact as his internals froze with the overwhelming sensation of loss.

Jazz was no stranger to loss, he had lost everything he held dear to him in his youngling vorns.  He knew at some level he hadn't processed those feeling particularly well. At the time he had to leave off the processing as he had to make sure he survived, from the point he had joined the autobots, the loss of Ricco and his creator had subsided into a dull muted ache, that surfaced between the point where the highgrade fuzzed his memory and complete blackout, generally he tried his best to get through that to black out as soon as possible.

Now he had no defence as grief tore him, grief that made his own seem minuscule and laid bare all that loss he had carefully stowed away.  It felt he had just recovered, when the grief hit again, drowning him.  He came to leaning against the door to the Berth room that Prowl had gone into.  He curled into a ball against it as another frozen wave washed across him.  It felt like he was drowning, All of his vents laboured as pretty much all systems started to redlining as they obeyed millennia old direction to bury grief instead of process it.  Another wave hit him, he reached out to try and find a surface to hold on to as his system tried to cope with the influx of sorrow.

The door opened, and he fell against the figure that had opened.  He was not conscious of who he was at this point, or which bot belonged to the legs he fell against, he had not enough memory to allocate who it was.

"Typical, of course, you don't have any way of dealing with grief, because you don't believe it's necessary" the voice sounded annoyed and Jazz thought he should recognise it.  He felt the altering of his code and he instinctively uncoiled and latched onto the figure as everything faded to black.

_-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jazz woke on a berth, curled on his side. his helm had a dull ache and he felt drained. sitting up he swung his legs over the edge of the berth and curled forward to put his helm into his hands.  

"Good, I'm glad you are awake we are nearing Kaon" prowl voice said from behind him.

Jazz would have spun around but he seriously didn't think his gyros would stand up to it.  "Watcha' doin' in ma berth Prowl, aren't cha vetoing me or somethin' like that?"

"I attempted to, but your grief protocols specify burying instead of the appropriate protocol for processing nearly took us both online" there was no mistaking Prowls emfield for anything except judgmental towards Jazz grieving mechanism.

Jazz attempted to remember the previous joors they were a bit fuzzy "ya said ya were gonna minimise the bond"

Prowl vented and swung past him to stand.  "That was my original intention, but I had to change your protocols so you could deal with grief, so I inadvertently strengthened the bond further"  

"How deep are we?"

"I don't know" Prowl vented deeply. The judgement in hi field lifting as frustration flooded it. "Past any depth that I am familiar with.  To get a factual answer we are going to have to get a spark test, for that we need a medic."

Jazz started at that.  "I'm not taking this to Hatchet."

"That would be my preference as well" Prowl replied "I have been drafting some tactical responses to minimising the bond's appearance to the Autobots"

On Jazz HUD several files appeared.

"Ya put some processing power to this?" Jazz asked the files were extensive.

"Not Particularly" Prowl's emfield dropped further "I am, however, aware that relations between Senior officers are preferred not to be substantial and a bonding at this level means that the demise of either of us will mean that the other will follow regardless of medical intervention."  Prowl turned away from Jazz.

"Ya mean I gotta watch your Aft?"

"I am perfectly able to watch my own aft" Prowls monotone didn't seem to change, but jazz could feel the frustration heighten "I would like to know the depth of the bond so we can see if we can mitigate its impact"

Jazz smirked "I know a medic, one who won't ask too many questions and with some shannix he'll do the scan"

"I don't want to leave our mission for this matter" Prowl frowned, his emfield had picked up the judgmental field again.

Jazz smirk turned into a grin "It's a good thing he's on the way"  He leant forward to bump Prowl shoulder.

"Don't touch me" was snapped in response.

**Author's Note:**

> This is a first for me and is unbeta'd. I would love constructive feedback!


End file.
